Politics as Usual

Politics as Usual

July 20, 2013

State GOP ad shows Kathleen Kane with her foot in her mouth

The state Republican Party is asking if the real Kathleen Kane will please stand up?

Kane, the state attorney general, has been both praised and criticized since announcing July 11 that her office would not defend Pennsylvania in a federal lawsuit challenging a state law that limits marriage to between a man and a woman.

Her advocates call the Democrat a hero for standing up against what Kane called an unconstitutional law.

Her critics, including the GOP, call her a politician who abdicated her duty to defend Pennsylvania against any and all lawsuits against state laws that have yet to be declared unconstitutional by a court — not Kane.

Well, this week the GOP found a nugget of a news clip that shows Kane talking out of both sides of her mouth when it comes to the job of attorney general.

The clip begins with a 2012 PCN interview in which Kane, as a candidate for attorney general, says the AG "does not have the right to pick and choose which laws to defend."

The GOP clip then flips to Kane's July 11 news conference at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia that her office will not defend the state against an ACLU lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania's 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.

Chairman Rob Gleason may have given plaintiffs in an ongoing civil trial their final sound bite for closing arguments.

The plaintiffs, including the ACLU and League of Women voters, are asking Commonwealth Court Judge Bernard L. McGinley to strike down the 2012 state law that requires voters to show a photo ID.

The plaintiffs argue the law was a political ploy by the Republican-controlled Legislature and Republican Gov. Tom Corbett to suppress the vote of the elderly and minorities and others who typically vote Democrat (Rep. Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, in June 2012 listed the measure among Republican legislative achievements, saying it would "allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania"). Republicans counter the law is needed to stop voter fraud.

But Gleason may have proven the plaintiffs' case for them in an interview Wednesday on a Pennsylvania Cable News Network.

In the interview, Gleason said voter ID helped narrow President Barack Obama's state victory over Republican challenger Mitt Romney by 5 percentage points.

Once a month, the state Revenue Department publishes details of how much money the Pennsylvania Lottery made.

It's usually a ho-hum event, but Thursday's news release, which included the 2012-13 year-end revenue, was tinged with political intrigue and sniping as the state-run Lottery hit record sales at the same time Gov. Tom Corbett still holds out hope to privatize the Lottery's management.

The Lottery finished the fiscal year with nearly $3.7 billion in sales, resulting in more than $1 billion net profit for the state, which uses Lottery proceeds to fund programs for senior citizens. Those record numbers are a result of Pennsylvania residents playing a record number of scratch games and various numbers games, such as Cash 5 and Powerball, while the Lottery's administrative costs continue to go down.

Democrats used those record results to attack Corbett's March 2012 plan to contract out the Lottery's management to British firm Camelot Global Services. Corbett said the plan would bring in more money for seniors; Democrats disagreed, saying the Lottery was already a well-run money-maker for the state.

The private contract never took effect after it was ruled illegal in February by Attorney General Kathleen Kane, a Democrat, who took office a month earlier. It's been in limbo ever since but Corbett and Camelot have extended the contract agreement multiple times, with the latest extension lasting until the end of July.

Bill Patton, spokesman for the House Democratic caucus, said last year's net revenue would have been higher "if not for the required payment of $3.5 million in consultant fees as part of the governor's bid to turn lottery management over to a private firm."

"If the private management agreement expenses were not incurred or expected, that money would likely have been dedicated to other investments to grow sales and profits," she said. "It's not accurate to assume these costs would have translated into higher profit in such a linear way."

This Lottery debate could be scratched again and again as the 2014 elections get closer.